Sharpshooting Bruins bury HRV with threes

GRESHAM — Trying to forget last Saturday’s home-court collapse against Franklin, the HRV boys took on No. 9-ranked Barlow on Thursday in the first round of the Barlow Trail Invitational.

And, while the Eagles made coach Phil Vesel happy by putting some of their bad habits behind them, they still emerged with the same result — a 76-64 loss.

“Considering the competition, this really wasn’t that bad of an effort,” said Vesel, whose team fell to 2-5 in the preseason. “I’ve said it before, but our lack of practice time is hurting us right now. I can’t fault the kids at all. They gave it their best effort.”

Senior point guard Andy Holmson scored 23 points to lead HRV, which faced Skyview of Vancouver, Wash., Friday at 2:30 p.m. (results not available at press time).

“Barlow is a good shooting club that relies on the three,” said Holmson, who drained a long-range three-pointer at the final buzzer to trim the final margin to 12 points.

“What this game came down to was them making all their shots and forcing us to walk the ball up the floor. That forced us into a few more turnovers than we would have liked.”

Another contributing factor was that the Eagles started off each of the first three quarters in a lull. They were within seven points (31-24) at halftime, but a 19-8 run at the start of the second half put the game out of reach.

“What happened was that we didn’t have our help-side defense working, which gave them a bunch of easy lay-ins,” Vesel said. “We lost our poise and started throwing the ball away, and you can’t do that against a team like Barlow.”